1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a condensate valve for at least one oil-water separator on a compressor.
2. Description of Related Art
High and medium pressure compressors comprise oil/water separators for separation of oil and water from compressed air before the release of the pressurized air to the consumer. In particular, such a condensate drainage system is made as an automatic condensate drain by means of which all oil/water separators on high and medium pressure compressors can be automatically drained.
Some condensate drainage systems known to date are controlled by means of additional control air, and the system pressure of the compressor system is not reduced in the course of draining the condensate. When the condensate is drained, the drain volume thus becomes large and cannot be discharged directly into a condensate collection tank since the drained condensate must be decompressed beforehand in an additional tank. Due to the large drainage volume, the system pressure of the compressor system drops; this adversely affects the efficiency of the compressor system. When a condensate drainage system is actuated via additional control air, furthermore, there must be additional lines so that, viewed overall, a considerable effort for implementing such a condensate drainage system is necessary.
In other applications, the condensate valves are not attached directly to the oil/water separators of the compressor system, but are located separately, for which optionally still additional connecting lines must be provided between the oil/water separators and the condensate valves. For this reason, the construction, of course, also become more expensive.
There are also condensate drainage systems in which the condensate is discharged directly via piloted solenoid valves with a very small nominal diameter. The solenoid valves with a small nominal diameter are very sensitive to dirt, and moreover, these medium and high pressure solenoid valves for direct discharge of the condensate are ultimately expensive in their production costs. If, instead of solenoid valves with a small nominal diameter, one with a larger nominal diameter is chosen to avoid a tendency to fouling, such a large drainage volume is obtained that additional relief tanks, as intermediate tanks for the condensate, are necessary for decompression and damping.
There is also a condensate valve with an integrated solenoid valve which can be attached directly to an oil/water separator. This condensate valve, however, has an extremely complicated structure, is associated with high costs and is susceptible to faults since, to some extent, there are very small line cross sections in the condensate valve which easily tend to clog.